OpenFields

717: Whose land is it anyway?

This paper is summarised from ‘Whose Land is it Anyway?’ a lecture given at Birkbeck, University of London on 17 October 2008 by Professor Philip Lowe, Director, UK Research Council’s Rural Economy and Land Use Programme

Year of Publication2008

Future land use is all about coordinating the long-term and the short-term, public and private interests, the economy and the environment. It is ultimately a matter of democratic choice and must engage a wide public debate. There is a need for experimentation and demonstration in how to integrate agri-environment factors in a whole farm approach - to date studies have concentrated on just one or two dimensions: whether water quality, water supply, soil erosion, run-off and drainage, aquatic biodiversity and terrestrial biodiversity and techniques such as buffer zones or minimal tillage or rotational fallow.